Review: Sea of Stars

Genre / Tags: Pixel Graphics, JRPG, Turn-Based Combat, RPG, Adventure, Indie
Developer/Publisher: Sabotage Studio/Sabotage Studio
URL: Sea of Stars on Steam

I recently came back to Sea of Stars after nearly a year since the last time I played it, and finally giving it the added time needed to just finish up the main storyline. At least I had thought, until learning there’s a “True Ending” to the game, finishing all the side quests and then coming back to fight the final boss. So i’d say i’m nearly 95-99% of the way done. I’ll get around to that but today we’re talking about the game itself.

Some would say that Sea of Stars is the spiritual successor to the highly enjoyed classic, Chrono Trigger. Which I couldn’t agree more. While the Sea of Stars has a modern pixelized graphic art style compared to Chrono Trigger, it feels almost in the same vein. Which just hits me right in my nostalgia, making me enjoy this game so much more.

The music in this game is just fantastic it just sets the mood at all times. Whether there’s something serious going on in the storyline or there’s a tough boss battle. At every moment i’m hooked in just with the music alone. I just found out recently that some of the tracks in Sea of Stars were even composed by Yasunori Mitsuda himself, who was one of if not the main composer for the Chrono series, among others obviously. But that really ties it back to being that Sea of Stars really is that spiritual successor people say it is.

Traversing the maps between combat is so unique. Even though Sea of Stars is pixel graphics, it makes up with it’s creativity and use of the 3D space in the levels for the various puzzles or just layout of the levels in general, being able to climb up and down things or use a grapple hook across a gap for example. It’s something I just don’t see that often anymore in games in the same genre. At least up until now. I find a lot of JRPG or RPG games just don’t utilize as much.

(Image credit: Sea of Stars)

Combat in Sea of Stars is fairly basic, but its interactive enough to keep you engaged all the time. Because it’s all about timing your attacks and blocks. When your character attacks right before they hit the monster, if you press the specific button at the right time, they usually will do additional damage. Same goes for the opposite, blocking an attack from an enemy will either do less damage to you or negate it entirely. You can also use certain types of magic against monster’s ‘big’ moves to stun them out of doing said abilities, which is such a unique system too.

(Image credit: Sea of Stars)

I definitely feel like there’s always going to be something to do with Sea of Stars. You can kind of play it casually and go through at your pace or beat the main story. Or you can be a bit more like me and want to get that full experience and finish out all the side quests and whatnot to get that additional ending. There’s easily 30+ hrs of content to the game. And that’s before New Game plus even comes into the picture. I’ve yet to try that out, but i’m sure there’s plenty of challenge there.

I wouldn’t say that Sea of Stars is super difficult, however you can SUPER cater your experience as much as you want. There’s lots of settings that you can customize when you start the game to add difficulty to it, as well as not using some of the relics the game gives you to give certain buffs or “nice-ities” to the gameplay.

It’s hard for me to give Sea of Stars anything less then a 9.6 / 10, there’s hardly anything I would really improve on, I could go on and on about all the little things I love about this game. The game even recently added couch co-op mode, letting you play with up to 2 other friends to go through the story with. I can only have high hopes to see what this game continues to crank out. Whether it’s DLC, which is coming soon, or another game in the series or what have you. There’s a lot they can do with these unique stories. And I for one cannot wait to play Sea of Stars more, because i’m not even done with my own playthrough.

Check out the latest Sea of Stars Trailer, posted below, about the Throes of the Watchmaker DLC that’s coming this spring! Also check them out on Steam!